The class, and the Kyrene School District as a whole, offer what some see as a utopian vision of education’s future. Classrooms are decked out with laptops, big interactive screens, and software that drills students on every basic subject. Under a ballot initiative approved in 2005, the district has invested roughly $33 million in such technologies.
The digital push here aims to go far beyond gadgets to transform the very nature of the classroom, turning the teacher into a guide instead of a lecturer, wandering among students who learn at their own pace on Internet-connected devices.
Hope and enthusiasm are soaring here. But not test scores.
Since 2005, scores in reading and math have stagnated in Kyrene, even as statewide scores have risen.
To be sure, test scores can go up or down for many reasons. But to many education specialists, something is not adding up - here and across the country. In a nutshell: Schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.
At the same time, the district’s use of technology has earned it widespread praise. It is upheld as a model of success by the National School Boards Association.
And the district has banked its future and reputation on technology. Kyrene, which serves 18,000 kindergarten to eighth-grade students, mostly from Tempe, Phoenix, and Chandler, uses its computer-centric classes as a way to attract children from around the region, shoring up enrollment as its local student population shrinks. More students mean more state dollars. And the push for technology is to the benefit of one group: technology companies.
The issue of tech investment will reach a critical point in November. The district plans to go back to local voters for approval of $46.3 million more in taxes over seven years to allow it to keep investing in technology. That represents around 3.5 percent of the district’s annual spending, five times what it spends on books.
The pressure to push technology into the classroom without proof of its value has deep roots.
In 1997, a science and technology committee assembled by President Clinton issued an urgent call about the need to equip schools with technology.
